


first and second and third

by Anemoi



Series: if it's all you can do [3]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 12:28:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3768505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anemoi/pseuds/Anemoi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raúl, Guti, and New York City</p>
            </blockquote>





	first and second and third

**Author's Note:**

> pretend i didn't ~gloss over~ the details of how and why Guti's in New York. ARTISTIC LICENSE.

Raúl's halfway through the dishes and tries to ignore his ringing phone on the counter top. Then he glances up and the caller ID says, _Guti Haz,_ and he swears, fumbles as he wipes his wet hands on his shirt to get to it. He picks it up, and Guti says, surprised, “I was about to hang up.”

“Dishes. Sorry.” Raúl says, breathless for no reason, and leans against the sink.

“Oh? Well, I'm in New York.” Guti says, smug.

Raúl turns around slowly. “What?”

“I have three days to do nothing because those fuckers cancelled my plane.” Guti says, frustration clouding his voice.

“When were you going to tell me?” Raúl says. He realizes the tap was still running, and shuts it off. The soap gurgles down the sink very slowly, making strange patterns on the steel.

“It was just for a commercial thing.” Guti says. “It was supposed to be just a couple days. Or else, I would come out and watch one of your matches.” Theres a smile at the end of his sentence.

They're both silent until Raúl says, “Which hotel?”

After a minute Guti says, strained, “Don't.”

 

But he tells him, anyway. Raúl hangs up, rinses the rest of the plates and puts them away. He entertains the idea of leaving his ring in the middle of the shining porcelain, but in the end only slides it in to his pocket.

 

-

He drives down to the city, leaving a message to Mamen pinned by a magnet to the fridge. Three days, Guti had said. It wasn't too long. The kids would be in school for most of the day. Mamen would understand. And if she didn't- Raúl's hands tighten on the steering wheel. It was only three days.

 

Raúl doesn't know what to expect when he sees Guti again. Too many memories and dreams and half remembered things that could be both. In reality, it is this- Guti with sunlight in his hair, leather jacket and jeans, frowning thoughtfully at a guidebook outside the hotel. Raúl throws his keys at the hotel chauffeur.

“Rulo.” Guti says, smirking, and hugs him. Raúl can't seem to look away from him. It feels like whiplash- like he'd woken up too fast- like he was still dreaming. It was a very perfect dream. Except that, Guti looks older. There was no way Raúl can imagine those crows feet running out on the corners of his eyes.

“Your hair is.” Raúl laughs, and brushes a hand over the top of Guti's head. “Thinning hair, hm? Jose Maria Gutierrez, getting old?”

Guti scowls at him, but it quickly dissolves in to a grin as he punches Raúl's shoulder. And it was easy, easy, to fall in to step beside Guti like they've never been apart at all.

 

-

The first night, and Guti says goodnight to him and shuts the door between their two rooms. Raúl lies in bed, stiff, waiting, aching for a knock that never came.

 

-

 

“You should sight see.” Raúl says the next morning, after breakfast.

Guti makes a face at him, mouth twisting in distaste. “Why? This isn't even my first time in New York.”

“Alright, but we can't just stay in here all day.”

Guti stretches, smiling. “I don't see why we can't.”

“Lets go watch one of Villa's games.” Raúl says suddenly, laughing. They search it up on Raúl's phone, Guti's blonde head leaning close to Raúl's, smelling faintly of the expensive hotel shampoo. It turns out New York FC was playing in Philadelphia this weekend, so that route was out.

“Lets.” Guti frowns, “Lets go to a museum.”

They walk the two blocks down to the MOMA, and Raúl blinks at Van Gogh and Kahlo and Jackson Pollock, until Guti stops in front of Picasso with a satisfied sigh.

“What?” Raúl says, confused. They just looked like squares and lines to him, abstract to the extent that there was no meaning he could glean. Guti pulls out his phone and hands it to Raúl. It was a picture of Guti posing beside a painting, smiling in clear contentment.

“Did you paint this?” Raúl says, starting to smile.

Guti shoves him, raising an eyebrow as though daring him to say something. “I did.”

“It's good.” Raúl says, struggling. “It's...very Picasso.” And Guti looks at him, disbelieving, and laughs out loud. The tourists stare at them in disapproval, but Raúl isn't looking at the people around them, or the masterpieces they were surrounded by. He's only looking at Guti, looking at the line of his throat as he laughs without restraint.

-

 

“Why are you really here, Raúl?” Guti says. They decided on dinner in the restaurant in the lobby of the hotel. It was darkly lit, a hush only punctuated by quiet conversations and clinks of silverware on porcelain. The candle flickers on the table between them, lighting up Guti face in hollows. It made him look ten years younger. Raúl swallows.

“To see you.”

Guti just looks at him. He isn't smiling, and Raúl suddenly feels helpless, as if that was the wrong answer. He was sick of things lying half said between them, the way they swallowed the ends of their sentences and the hurt lying in the bitten off ends of proclamations. He didn't know if he missed Guti, or if he missed Real Madrid, or if he just missed being _young._ Except those things were all tangled up together, a Gordian knot, unsolvable, because they were all the same, in the end.

“I missed you.” He says instead, and he reaches across the table and puts a hand over Guti's. He feels Guti's hand clench on the tablecloth, and sees the way he winces as he glances to the side. No one was paying attention. Nobody cared.

“I missed you.” He says again, because it was true.

Guti looks back at him, and he turns his hand so it was lying, palm up, in Raúl's.

 

-

Theres a soft knock, second night, as Raúl was lying on the verge of sleep. He's still groggy when he gets up to open the door, although his heart was beating too fast, as if he'd woken from a nightmare.

Guti was standing on the other side, barefoot. Raúl opens his mouth to say his name, but Guti's just smiling and shaking his head. He steps in and kisses Raúl, walks him back as he kicks the door shut. One step, two, three, and Raúl's back hits the bed, Guti straddling him.

“Is it always this, Raúl?” Guti says in to his ear, “Is it always me, chasing after you?” and Raúl starts to protest, to try and explain why he couldn't, why he shouldn't _-_ but Guti was pushing up his shirt and kissing down his chest, mouth a hot brand on his skin.

-

 

“I'll come home if we win Undecima.” He says. Guti half stirs beside him, and smiles, sleepy eyed. He curls his hand over Raúl's heart, and leaves it there as he falls asleep.

 

-

 

The weather was miserable again, typical for New York, looking like it would rain any second. Raúl unloads Guti's bag on to an airport cart, leans in to tie the scarf around his neck a little snugger. Guti rolls his eyes a little, fidgets under Raúl's fingers. Then Guti turns to leave, and Raúl holds out his arms, a little hesitant. Guti walks in to his embrace, and he fit, perfectly. Raúl feels him exhale softly beside his ear. Raúl closes his eyes. The sky was starting to drip rain. If he could just stand here for a while longer he could memorize every single detail about this moment, and maybe that would make it last to infinity.

“I love you, Raúl Gonzalez Blanco. I love you.” Guti says, and then he's walking away. Raúl watches him go through the sliding doors under the departures sign, and theres something in his heart, like an uncertainty, but he could only stand there. His feet felt like they'll grow roots in to the concrete.

 

-

 

The drive back was unbearable.

 

-

 

The kids were in school when Raúl comes home, back aching. He's getting a glass of water at the sink when Mamen says, “Raúl.”

He turns around, and their eyes meet, almost by accident, and he sees the shock in the widening of her eyes. It was as though she was only looking for confirmation of something she already knew. She reaches a hand down to the counter to steady herself, and Raúl puts down his glass, starts to walk over to her.

She raises a hand against him. “Stop.”

Raúl opens his mouth, but its no use. It's no use at all, because she knows, and he knows that she knows, and she knows that he knows that she knows, and- well. It's out, now. The truth like an ugly toad that had pushed apart his tongue and hopped out to sit between them.

“You make it so obvious.” She says, and her eyes were hard and glassy with tears though her mouth trembles upwards in a smile.

“What?” He says, helpless, “What's obvious?”

“Don't.” Mamen says. She walks closer, and Raúl has to drop his eyes. “ You leave when he calls out of nowhere. You can't sleep at night because of him _._ It was always him. Are you going to leave us for good soon? Did you love me at all?” The last part she says in a whisper, but she didn't have to raise her voice anyway, because she was right in front of him now, every word like a knife to plunge in his heart.

“I did.” And then he curses when he realizes, ( _I do, I do. I meant-)_ Mamen laughs. She swipes the glass off the table with the back of her arm. It makes a terrible noise when it hits the linoleum, too loud for something that was so small.

She leaves Raúl alone to pick up the shards. He sweeps them carefully in to the waste basket, knowing that their children liked to run barefoot in the house. Then he takes his ring out of his pocket, and slides it back on to his finger.

-

Real doesn't make it to the champions league finals. He calls Guti one day after dinner, when the kids were clamoring for the tv and Mamen's clearing up the table.

Theres things he wants to say to Guti that he can't. He wants to say, _I've been thinking of what you said._ He wants to say, _Me too._ He wants to say, _you, you, you. First and second and third._ Even though this wasn't true. What he says instead when the call goes through and Guti's just breathing on the line, not speaking, was:

“No Undecima.”

“No.” Guti agrees.

“So, next year then?” Raúl says, heart in his throat.

Guti doesn't say anything for a minute, and when he does, his voice was sad. There wasn't that teasing strain to it, no gentle sarcasm. Just a terrible, knowing sadness. “Yes,” He says. Raúl closes his eyes and leans against the wall. “Yes, there’s always next year.”

 

“Next year.” Raúl says back to him, soft.

**Author's Note:**

> 1)I stole "first and second and third" from Fitzgerald and own nothing.   
> 2)the "Guti is a wannabe Picasso" thing is actually from this: https://twitter.com/GUTY14HAZ/status/578643358362546176  
> 3)Also, I made this because...well. //laugh cries 
> 
>  
> 
>  


End file.
